Phil Plait recently announced that he was starting a new series of Crash Course videos on astronomy. After watching it, I noticed the really cool Youtube channel that it’s on. I suspect that I’m going to end up wasting dedicating a lot of time on this channel.

One series that caught my attention, because it’s close to subjects I’ve written about before and integrates nicely with the current book I’m reading, is the one on World History with John Green. This first video is on theories about the rise of the west.

The second one I’m going to share with you, also with Green, is on the collapse of the bronze age civilization (c. 1200 BCE).

In both of these videos, Green provides many cautions about these theories. I’ve written before that most theories about why civilizations collapse are put forth by people with an agenda of some kind for our own times. I think the same thing is largely true about most people who write about the west’s successes, in that typically the keys to success they identify involve some institutions or practices the author wants us to protect, take up, or return to.